Abstract

Phragmotic or “door head” ants have evolved independently in several ant genera across the world, but in Africa only one case has been documented until now. Carebara elmenteitae (Patrizi) is known from only a single phragmotic major worker collected from sifted leaf-litter near Lake Elmenteita in Kenya, but here the worker castes of two species collected from Kakamega Forest, a small rainforest in Western Kenya, are studied. Phragmotic major workers were previously identified as Carebara elmenteitae and non-phragmotic major and minor workers were assigned to C. thoracica (Weber). Using evidence of both morphological and next-generation sequencing analysis, it is shown that phragmotic and non-phragmotic workers of the two different species are actually the same and that neither name – C. elmenteitae or C. thoracica – correctly applies to them. Instead, this and another closey related species from Ivory Coast are both morphologically different from C. elmenteitae, and thus they are described as the new species Carebara phragmotica sp. n. and Carebara lilith sp. n.

Addeddate

2025-03-16 04:27:12

Bhl_virtual_titleid

210914

Bhl_virtual_volume

v.525 (2015)

Call number

10_3897_zookeys_525_6057

Call-number

10_3897_zookeys_525_6057

Foldoutcount

0

Genre

article

Identifier

twonewphragmoti525fisc

Identifier-ark

ark:/13960/s2gjp7tpr3w

Identifier-bib

10_3897_zookeys_525_6057

Identifier-doi

10.3897/zookeys.525.6057

Ocr

tesseract 5.3.0-6-g76ae

Ocr_detected_lang

en

Ocr_detected_lang_conf

1.0000

Ocr_detected_script

Latin

Ocr_detected_script_conf

1.0000

Ocr_module_version

0.0.21

Ocr_parameters

-l eng

Page_number_confidence

84

Page_number_module_version

1.0.5

Page_range

77-105

Pages

29

Pdf_degraded

invalid-jp2-headers

Pdf_module_version

0.0.25

Possible copyright status

In copyright. Digitized with the permission of the rights holder.

Ppi

300

Source

ZooKeys 525

Year

2015

Show More

Show Less